


not strictly cinematic

by syntheseas



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Camilla Hect - Background, F/F, Forced Orgasm, Gideon and Harrow do not bang in this, Harrowhark Nonagesimus/Ianthe Tridentarius - Background/Unrequited, Improper Use of Flesh Magic, Light Dom/sub, Loss of Virginity, Mutual Pining - Background, Necromancers and Cavaliers Still Exist Though, Palamedes Sextus - Background, this started as porn and somehow became a character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:08:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27853126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syntheseas/pseuds/syntheseas
Summary: Gideon Nav packed up her shit and moved halfway across the country to major in swinging a sword around, all because Harrow wanted to learn more about bone magic than any reasonable person had a right to. The least she deserves is to get laid.Luckily, Ianthe agrees.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Gideon Nav/Ianthe Tridentarius
Comments: 21
Kudos: 59





	not strictly cinematic

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings at the end of the fic. Special thanks to [liveonthesun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liveonthesun/pseuds/liveonthesun) and Riley for betaing!

Ianthe Tridentarius’s face was not, strictly speaking, the absolute worst. If you’d put a sword to Gideon’s throat and pressed really, really hard—

Well. She still probably wouldn’t have admitted it. Harrow’s throat, though, could have possibly persuaded her.

Ianthe had good bone structure. She had at least the basis for good everything. Her twin was a fucking knockout, six foot something of gold skin, gold curls, and solid muscle. And while Ianthe had no claim to any of the latter three, she was tall, which was perhaps the third most important quality in a woman as far as Gideon was concerned.

The first quality, of course, was reciprocity, though if that was lacking then Gideon was absolutely down to knock one out in the privacy of her room to the thought of reciprocity. The second quality, unfortunately, was the ability to act like a truly heinous bitch.

Because Gideon’s luck was consistently total dogshit, this didn’t usually coincide with the first quality. Or even the third quality. You didn’t need to have all three to catch Gideon Nav’s attention — Harrowhark Nonagesimus was both miniscule and uninterested, and Gideon had moved halfway across the country for her.

(The fourth quality, which was a killer rack, could and often did compensate for any absence of the first three.)

(Harrow did not have a killer rack.)

(Somehow Gideon was still into it.)

And, because Gideon’s luck often surpassed total dogshit and entered the realm of unbelievable, nigh on indescribable  _ horseshit _ —  Ianthe Tridentarius did not have a killer rack, nor was she down to fuck. She merely sucked so hard she could have given black holes a run for their money, and she was stupidly, annoyingly tall.

“I don’t care,” said Palamedes when Gideon poured out her woes to him, which was just typical, really. He was doing something with a microscope slide that was presumably very interesting if you liked thinking very hard about tiny wiggly things that chewed up your guts for you so that you could shit better. Gideon did not.

Camilla agreed, and added that while Gideon did seem to be in something of a pickle, Ianthe Tridentarius did not indicate an improvement in her taste in women, and therefore she could offer only limited sympathy.

“I need better friends,” said Gideon, hoisting herself up to sit on the lab table next to Palamedes.

He peered up at her for the merest half-second, then went back to his microscope. “Get some, then.”

Gideon flipped him off, which he did not notice because he was nose-deep in gut bacteria, then said, “I really, really want her to rail me, though.”

Neither Palamedes nor Camilla responded.

“Or I could rail her,” Gideon continued, undaunted, “if she wanted that. She might. God, I bet she’s absolutely useless in bed. Just lies there bossing you around and yelling when you ignore her shitty instructions and do it right.”

Again, neither Palamedes nor Camilla indulged her.

“Do _her_ right, more like,” Gideon said.

In the weary tones of one who has tried and failed to derail a particularly terrible conversational train, Camilla said, “If you think she’s bad in bed, why do you want to sleep with her?”

“ I  _ don’t know _ ,” Gideon said, then, “She made a dirty joke the other day that was absolutely top-notch.”

“What was the joke,” Camilla said in the exact same tone.

“Cam, don’t encourage this.”

“Okay, I was outside the caf at that bulletin board where all the necros post ads for their studies, and there was one that wanted people to go get their back muscles diagrammed or whatever, and I was looking at it trying to decide whether thirty bucks an hour was worth having some twiggy weirdo with specs and a fetish for corpses, no offense, Sextus”—Palamedes snorted—“some twiggy weirdo peel open my shoulders, when Ianthe walked up and said, ‘Don’t bother, I’ve seen his work, and he’s closer to a hooker than a real flesh magician.’”

The lab was silent.

“Because flesh,” Gideon said helpfully. “Flesh magic.”

Palamedes said, “Cam, could you pass me another sample slide?”

“It might have been funnier at the time,” Gideon allowed.

Camilla passed over a small piece of glass. “Probably not.”

So that was a bust.

Gideon did not particularly want to take this complaint to Harrow. For starters, Harrow would not be inclined to be sympathetic, and was in fact very likely to be unsympathetic, bordering on outright dickish. This was not unusual for Drearburh’s necromantic starlet, and Gideon was not looking for genuine commiseration, but it still did seem a bit tacky to go to one’s long-time crush cum foe (heh) and say, “You know the drippy sneering chick you do creepy witch surgery with on the reg? I would drop trou for her straight off if she asked, so could you put in a good word?”

However, having exhausted the Sixth’s patience and with Harrow as a non-starter, Gideon’s options were running dangerously thin. She could have maybe gone to Magnus, who was much better as a source of support than he was as the fencing coach, except that telling Magnus something usually also meant telling his wife, who was a well-meaning but notorious busybody. Gideon needed more necromancers up in her business like she needed a hole in the head.

Also, Magnus often had a pair of teenagers hanging around – his nephew, Gideon was pretty sure, and his nephew’s friend. Gideon had once, under the extreme duress of Magnus’s friendly smile, demonstrated proper chin-up form for the nephew’s friend, who had just about popped her eyes out of her head. She was not in a hurry to repeat the experience.

Dulcinea Septimus was out of the question for similar reasons to Harrowhark, though Gideon imagined her reaction to the phrase “drop trou” would be quite different. Coronabeth would be even worse. Which just about covered all of Gideon’s options, since she had chosen not to befriend anyone on the fencing team other than Camilla. She was suddenly bemoaning the fact that, barring Sextus, most of her social circle were either hot, eligible women, or old.

The good news was that, since Ianthe was a necromancer and a flesh magician to boot, Gideon’s schedule had absolutely no overlap with hers. Not even her combat classes with Harrow, where Harrow raised pillar after pillar of bone for Gideon to leap between, where she ploughed through skeletons nearly as fast as Harrow could raise them, where they fought against each other and side by side in equal measure, learning each other’s tells and tics and rhythms until they were a team forged in bone ash and bloody iron, brought her into contact with Ianthe; when they fought together, they fought against Harrow’s necromancy professors and their cavaliers.

So Ianthe Tridentarius remained somewhat like a satellite, in Gideon’s orbit but not quite in her space, occasionally glinting from a distance – until, somehow, that satellite fell out of orbit, through the atmosphere, caught fire, and crashed into the earth.

Maybe not literally.

* * *

Gideon came back to her room one Tuesday evening, soaked with sweat and having just finished a two hour stint at the gym. She was feeling pretty fucking great, coming off of a runner’s high and pleasantly sore from her time with the free weights. Putting her body through its paces always put her in a good mood. Her hair was matted down at the back of her neck and sticking to her forehead, and she was really looking forward to a hot shower, followed by immediately crashing into her bed, maybe jacking off, and then sleeping for a solid ten hours.

She pushed open the door, and Ianthe Tridentarius was sitting on her bed, looking decidedly un-crashed, unburnt, and unfallen.

“Uh,” said Gideon, who was pretty sure she’d had some dreams that started this way.

Ianthe rolled her eyes, and did not greet Gideon.

“What are you doing here?” Gideon said, returning the courtesy.

“Whatever do you mean?” Ianthe drawled, and put her feet up, shoes still on, on Gideon’s bed.

Gideon revisited her policies on punching. Punching Ianthe was probably out – not because she was a girl, but because she was a necromancer. Hitting a necromancer was always a bit cheap. It was like hitting a toddler with muscular dystrophy, and it wasn’t even very fun, since they crumpled like a sack of wet bones and then immediately started putting themselves back together.

“This is my room,” she said in lieu of punching. It did not feel very satisfying, but the alternative probably would not have been much moreso.

“My, what great observational skills you have. Shall we play I Spy next?”

“Why,” Gideon said, more deliberately, “are you in my room?”

Ianthe trailed her fingers over the surface of Gideon’s threadbare comforter. “Perhaps I’m looking for hot tips on interior decorating. What not to try, and all that. This room is a cautionary tale in its own right.”

Gideon had to give her that one. The room was split down the middle, and each side was starkly austere for very different reasons. On the one side, Harrowhark, who thought that the only acceptable shades to decorate in ranged from midnight to ebony, and who considered any surface with more than an ounce of give to it frivolous. On the other, Gideon, whose concessions to decorating had been some pinups surreptitiously ripped from gas station magazines (Harrow had turned purple, and Gideon had told her it was the price to pay for having strings of human bones decorating the windows) and the shabby comforter which had been hers since the age of four, and Aiglamene’s before that. It was nearly too short for her now, and the coverlet had been washed so often that it was basically colorless, but Gideon would not have traded it for all the silken pillows Ianthe probably had on her stupid rich girl bed.

“Try again.” Gideon dropped her exercise duffel on the floor. It thumped.

“ What have you been  _ doing _ ?” Ianthe wrinkled her nose. “You positively reek.”

“I was at the gym,” Gideon said. “You should try it sometime. Third strike, you’re out: what are you doing in my room?”

“If you _must_ know,” Ianthe said, rolling her eyes expansively, “I’m waiting for Harry. We were supposed to be reviewing for Professor Joy’s Introductory Anatomy midterm.”

Gideon’s brain said, _Harry?_ Her mouth, which she would have kissed if it hadn’t been completely impossible, said, “I review anatomy every night. Twice on Saturdays.”

“How prodigious,” Ianthe smirked. “Your roommate must love that.”

“Honestly, I’m pretty sure she’s never noticed.”

“ Whatever,” said Ianthe, who was making a good show of performing the definition of the word  _ languid. _ “ Do you know where she is? I’ve been waiting for forty minutes.”

Gideon did not know where Harrow was. In fact, when Harrow was not with Gideon, Gideon rarely knew where she was. Harrow had made opacity an art form, ~~~~ one for which her devotion was eclipsed only by her dedication to necromancy. However, she could on occasion send a text, so Gideon fished her phone out of her pocket.

She had five missed messages, all of them from Harrow, all received while her phone had been in her locker at the gym.

_Griddle,_ read the first. _I am finishing up research at the library. Ianthe Tridentarius is coming over to study. Let her in. The notes she needs are in my desk. Do not be rude to her._

Then:  _ Do not talk to her. _

Then:  _ Do not forget to lock the door this time. _

Then:  _ Do not leave your disgusting sweaty gym clothes on the floor again. Put them in the laundry bin. _

Then, almost as an afterthought:  _ I will be back by midnight at the very latest. _

Gideon checked her watch. It was only half past eight.

“Well?” said Ianthe, and then, “Goddamnit,” when Gideon showed her the texts.

“Really don’t know what you expected,” Gideon said. “It’s Harrow.” Harrow, who demanded scrupulous respect for her own time, generally considered everyone else’s schedules an inconvenience at best.

Ianthe pursed her lips. “I suppose.” She looked around the room lazily, wispy pale hair tickling at the tips of her shoulders, her eyes passing over Gideon like she was just another piece of furniture. Then in one fluid movement, she swung her long pale legs around, bringing her feet off Gideon’s bed—

And kicked her shoes to the floor.

“Hey,” said Gideon, who was pretty sure this was not a step one took towards leaving. “What?”

“Go shower,” said Ianthe, reclining herself again on Gideon’s single, shitty pillow. “I’ll amuse myself until you get back.”

Gideon stared dumbly. “Harrow’s stuff is over there.” She jerked her head to the other side of the room – the dark, unyielding side, precisely and exactingly organized, severe and clean in a way that could never be mistaken for Gideon’s. “Pretty sure her notes are in the top drawer.”

“Yes,” Ianthe drawled, “thank you, I never could have guessed. I’ll collect them when I go. Now, shower.” She flicked a hand dismissively. “Before I clean you up myself.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Gideon said, unable to help herself.

Ianthe cocked a single, nearly translucent eyebrow and gave Gideon a long lascivious once-over. “How’s this for a threat? If you make me open your pores and reabsorb your sweat for you, I’ll leave, and the only good time you’ll have will be reviewing anatomy by yourself.”

Gideon blinked. “Wait, for real?”

Ianthe groaned, long and low, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Nav, I do not know how much clearer I can make this. You are hot, and I am horny, but you are also drenched in sweat, and I have standards. Shower. Be quick about it.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Gideon said, but she grabbed a towel and her body wash and went off to the bathroom.

Holy shit. Holy  _ shit _ . What the actual entire fuck. She fairly stalked down the hallway, half-furious, half-painfully aroused as she stripped, stepped into the spray and lathered up. This could not be real life. There was no way that Ianthe Tridentarius, notorious and unrepentant bitch, unabashedly tall, who somehow managed to rock a body like a sickly birch tree and a personality that made her the pity of hornets everywhere, had lain on Gideon’s shitty garbage dorm-room mattress like a pale imitation of a particularly disdainful pinup, and told her to shower. There was no way Gideon had done it.

It was the quickest shower of her life.

After it was over, Gideon realized she had done something very stupid, which would have been entirely reasonable if Ianthe hadn’t been in her room: she had not brought a change of clothes. When she had left, she had been dressed; usually when she returned, it was in a towel. But if she went back in a towel, she would be in a towel in front of a fully-dressed Ianthe Tridentarius. This was a position that, though exciting on a number of levels, wasn’t how she wanted to start the night.

She put her damp sports bra and shorts back on, swung her shirt over the back of her neck, and called it even.

When Gideon returned to her room, very little had changed, with the exception that Ianthe had turned off the overhead light and turned on both Gideon and Harrow’s desk lamps. This admittedly did shift the mood from clinical bordering on sterile to something approaching cozy, but it did not soften Gideon’s chafed irritation. This wasn’t Ianthe’s room. Fucking  _ ask. _

Ianthe looked almost exactly the same. She was reclining on Gideon’s pillow, one leg extended and one bent at the knee, which meant that her skirt had flopped to show off her panties. Gideon’s irritation subsided just a little. The three little buttons at the neck of her gauzy lavender shirt had been undone, which did not show off as much cleavage as she might be hoping, but the effect was enough to pause Gideon in her tracks.

“Weren’t you supposed to put those in the laundry?” Ianthe said, wrinkling her nose, which ordinarily would have hit Gideon like a bucket of ice water to the face. It didn’t, largely because she’d suddenly realized that Ianthe’s skirt was unzipped and only one of her hands was visible.

“I’ll put it in somewhere,” said Gideon, because really, how could she not.

“I’m sure,” said Ianthe drolly. Then she must have hit a particularly sensitive spot, because her head tipped back and she gasped softly.

“Oh, hell yes,” Gideon said, slinging her towel and her shirt in the vague direction of the laundry bin and bouncing herself onto the bed. “You love to see it. I’m clean, by the way,” she added.

Ianthe stared at her.

“I mean, I showered, but the tunnel of love is also pretty squeaky, is what I’m saying.”

“How do you feel about gags?” Ianthe asked.

Gideon narrowed her eyes.

“I suppose they would limit the use of your tongue,” Ianthe conceded. “As for your ‘tunnel of love’...” She looked at Gideon, then at the pinups on the walls, then back to Gideon. “I had assumed as much.”

“Bitch,” Gideon said. Then she surged forward and kissed her.

The kiss was, on the whole, probably not Gideon’s best work. Ianthe had a hand down her own skirt and was lounging back on the bed, which meant that Gideon had to surge a bit further forward than was strictly cinematic to reach her lips, until she was left nearly lying on top of Ianthe. The surge turned into a lunge, which turned into a fall, which turned into a collision that left Gideon’s jaw sore. Ianthe’s arm was a weird, not-very-comfortable ridge in between them. Gideon paused, then sat back on her heels, knees bracketing Ianthe’s hips.

“Good God,” said Ianthe, who looked as though she was regretting more than a few of her choices.

“Shut the fuck up,” said Gideon, acutely aware that she was not helping her case. “Get your hand out of your pants and participate.”

“I don’t think you understand how this works.”

Gideon glared at her, then carefully took the hem of Ianthe’s shirt in both hands. It was made out of some flimsy, lacy fabric that Gideon was pretty sure she would rip in half if she sneezed too hard, and though she was sorely tempted, she took her time pulling it up over Ianthe’s stomach. Ianthe, surprisingly obliging, took her hand out of her skirt to prop herself up on her elbows, letting Gideon lift the material without resistance. Probably she just didn’t trust Gideon with her clothes, which was… fair enough.

Ianthe’s stomach was smooth and pale, almost luminescent. She had no scars, which Gideon ought to have expected on some level, what with her being a flesh magician and all, but it was still strange. Gideon had weird scars all over her torso, not all of which were from swordfighting. She paused the slow ascent of the shirt and ran her fingers over the creamy expanse of Ianthe’s skin.

It was soft, and _warm,_ and extraordinarily sexy. Like a… well, like a girl’s body, since Gideon was having a lot of trouble thinking of anything sexier at the moment _._ She was seized by the urge to put her face on it and blow bubbles.

She did not do this, partially because Ianthe was a powerful necromancer who no doubt would have some weird and nasty way to make her stop, probably involving Gideon’s most favorite organs, but mostly because she really did want to get laid. Instead she ran her hand again over Ianthe’s silky skin.

Ianthe twitched.

“No way,” said Gideon.

“Say nothing.”

Gideon said nothing, but she did do it again, and again Ianthe jerked under her fingers. Not exactly the way Gideon had expected it to happen, but she wasn’t about to complain. Ianthe Tridentarius was ticklish. This was officially the best day of Gideon’s life, and that didn’t even include the fact that she had a real, live, partially-naked girl in her bed.

When Gideon moved to put her hand on Ianthe’s stomach again, Ianthe’s voice was sharp as steel. “Do you want to push this further, or do you want to see my tits? Because I assure you, you won’t get both.”

Gideon had to pause at that. “Tits,” she said finally, but it was a difficult choice.

“Then continue,” Ianthe said, pushing herself up to sit properly and raising her arms.

Because at this point they were nearly nose to nose, Gideon kissed her again and did a much better job this time. Ianthe’s mouth was soft, but it didn’t yield the way someone else’s might have. Instead it opened, and Gideon opened hers to match it, and Ianthe sucked Gideon’s lip between her teeth and bit down gently. Gideon whined.

“Show me that trick again.”

Ianthe gave her a withering look. “Your attention span is absolutely pitiful. Tits, or no tits?”

“Oh, yeah,” Gideon said, pulling the shirt the rest of the way over Ianthe’s head.

Ianthe’s breasts were pretty similar to her stomach: pale, soft, and very inviting. Again Gideon had to resist the temptation to dive forward, face first. Her bra was satiny and sheer. Gideon reached around to undo the clasp about five seconds before she realized that she couldn’t see the clasp and a lifetime of wearing sports bras had rendered her therefore entirely useless.

To cover, she wrapped her arms around Ianthe and kissed her again, pulling her tight against Gideon’s chest. She tried the trick with the lip and the teeth, didn’t land it, and decided to continue with what she understood, which was normal kissing with maybe a bit of tongue.

She felt more than heard Ianthe’s exasperated sniff; then Ianthe’s arms flexed and bent in a way Gideon couldn’t see, and when their mouths broke apart, her bra fell away between them.

“Oh, shit,” Gideon said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Nice one.”

“You’re not holding me like that again until you take off your clothes,” said Ianthe, which Gideon was pretty on board with until she added, “because your bra is drenched, which is disgusting.”

“You really know how to set the mood,” said Gideon, but Ianthe was topless, which gave her the upper hand this time around. She reached to pull off her bra.

Ianthe’s soft hand closed on her bicep. “Stop.”

Gideon did stop, but she also said, “You’re giving off some pretty mixed signals here.”

“I want to watch,” said Ianthe. “Properly.”

“You are watching,” Gideon countered. Ianthe was nearly at eye level. If she had wanted to bury her face in Gideon’s chest, an idea to which Gideon would not have been opposed at all, she could have leaned forward a few inches and called it a day.

“ _ Properly _ ,” Ianthe repeated, drawling like an absolute champion. “Like a show.” Gideon opened her mouth, about to tell her where to stick it. But before she could, Ianthe tilted her head, quirked her mouth, and added in a low voice, “Would you do that for me, Gideon?”

Which was just not playing fair.

Gideon climbed off the bed, stood in the middle of the room, and felt like an absolute idiot. “Any requests?”

Ianthe considered this. “Shorts first,” she declared finally. “I want to see your legs.”

Gideon almost pointed out that, given that she was wearing shorts, Ianthe could see most of her legs already. But arguing didn’t seem like it would get her back into the bed any faster, so she slid her shorts down a few inches. Then she thought about what she was doing for a moment and turned her back.

Before Ianthe could remark, snottily or otherwise, Gideon took a breath and put her hands on her hips. She spread her feet just a bit further than hips-width apart and tensed so that every muscle would be apparent. Then she folded herself in half, ass out, sliding her hands along her legs and pulling her shorts down with them. For an encore, she bent her head all the way between her knees to check out her audience’s reaction.

Even upside down, Ianthe’s wide eyes were incredible to behold. They only lasted for a moment, but Gideon was going to carry that smug satisfaction to the fucking grave.

She grinned. “You wanted legs.”

“An excellent choice on my part,” Ianthe said. Gideon preened.

“Any other special requests, your majesty? I’ll be here all night.”

“I should hope so,” Ianthe said, reaching out a long, elegant finger to pull at the waistband of Gideon’s underwear. “These next. Stay as you are.”

Gideon stuck her tongue out, then waggled it. Then, for good measure, she added her hand for a gesture that would be unmistakable even upside down. But she did stay as she was, bent double with her head between her own legs, as she shimmied her underwear down to give Ianthe the full behind-the-scenes.

“Curtains match,” Ianthe said, “within reason. Color me genuinely surprised.”

“Is this enough of a show yet,” said Gideon, who was starting to strain just a little, “or are you just going to keep me standing here?”

“It’s a nice view.” Ianthe’s mouth quirked. “You’re easier than I expected.”

Gideon flipped her the bird, but as she was still upside down, she thought it might have lost some of the desired impact.

“I suppose you can get up,” Ianthe allowed. “Slowly.”

Gideon knew what that meant, so she did it, keeping her legs stiff and her back straight, moving only at the hips. She could feel her ass stand out all the more, and couldn’t keep a smirk off her face as she turned around.

Ianthe’s expression wasn’t particularly impressed, but her hand had disappeared back down her skirt. She said, “I wonder if Harry would trade cavaliers if I asked nicely.”

“Even you couldn’t pay her enough to take Tern off your hands,” Gideon said, preening more. She reached for her bra and started to pull it over her head. “This next, then?”

“Good of you to take the initiative,” Ianthe said, running the nails of her free hand up the inside of her thigh and shivering somewhat. “Yes.”

There were not a lot of ways Gideon could imagine to make taking off a sports bra particularly sexy, aside from the fact that inside were boobs, and once it was off the boobs would be outside, which improved any situation. So she grabbed the bottom of her bra and yanked it over her head, flexing in ways that definitely weren’t necessary but definitely were fun. When she pulled her head free, she saw that Ianthe had shifted on the bed, leaning in to watch a little more closely.

“Like what you see?”

“Again, your powers of observation are astonishing. If I didn’t, would I still be here?”

“I dunno.” Gideon scooped up her shorts, balled them up with her bra, and chucked the entire wad of fabric towards the general area of the laundry bin. “Maybe. You’re a crazy, manipulative witch. Who knows why you do anything?”

“Guilty as charged, I’m afraid, though the truth isn’t going to win you many points.” Ianthe dropped onto her front, kicking up her feet and tipping back her head in a way that she probably thought (accurately) made her look coquettish. “Are you quite done showing off?”

“When you got it, flaunt it,” Gideon said, then, “Can I take your skirt off, too?”

“Oh, if you must,” said Ianthe in a tone that seemed to be making a stab at petulance, but when Gideon put her hands on Ianthe’s hips, she canted her body in a way that made it easy for Gideon to slide the rest of her clothes off.

The skirt, made of a more durable material than the shirt, came off quickly; the panties, made of a less durable material than the bra, did not. Again Gideon took her time, but here her care wasn’t just because of the fit Ianthe would pitch if Gideon fucked up. Ianthe was, aggravatingly, not technically wrong when she had implied that Gideon had not done this before. Drearburh’s social scene had been tragically underserved when it came to hot babes. Which meant that this – Gideon’s first time getting naked with one such babe – was special, even if that babe was Ianthe Tridentarius.

She took the fabric and slid it down slowly, gently, over the surface of Ianthe’s long, long legs. Her thighs were dappled with tiny, feathery little hairs, so lightly colored that one wouldn’t have been able to see them at a distance further than six inches. But Gideon saw them, and she relished it.

The panties came off, and Gideon slid her hands up and down the length of Ianthe’s legs again for good measure. Then, when Ianthe made an impatient little noise, Gideon looked up and along the bed. She looked past Ianthe’s knees to her hips, to her face, and then back to her hips, where she realized that she had once again gotten momentarily distracted from the main attraction.

Ianthe’s pussy was on full display, deep rich pink and very inviting. Gideon felt her brain melt and start to drip out her ears.

“ Glrrph,” she said. That might have been better than what she’d meant to say, which was,  _ If I was about to die, necromancer pussy would make a kickass last meal. _

“This part should be intuitive even for you,” Ianthe said, and spread her legs a little wider.

“I fucking knew it,” Gideon said, which was also not the right thing to say, but she didn’t care, because she fucking knew it. “I knew you’d be a bossy self-centered princess even in bed. I knew it!”

Ianthe’s mouth curled down at the corner, and she pushed herself up to sitting again, but all she said was, “Your dirty talk needs work.” Then she seized Gideon by the back of the neck and pulled her into a kiss.

It was the first kiss Ianthe had bothered to initiate, and it was a beaut, in Gideon’s admittedly amateur opinion. Part of it was simply that Ianthe knew what she was doing, and when Gideon started getting off-course, Ianthe would grip her by the base of the neck or open her mouth a little wider and course correct. Her mouth was soft and warm, and she tasted vaguely of salt.

Ianthe kissed like a tiger, or a wildfire, or maybe a bossy self-centered princess – the part of Gideon’s brain responsible for clever comparisons was experiencing some technical difficulties. With one hand, her nails dug into Gideon’s neck and shoulder blades. The other hand was firmly placed on Gideon’s ass, and it was doing its best imitation of one of those claw-grippy things in those arcade machines, which was to say that it was grabbing like a champ. When Gideon groaned at the sensation, Ianthe pushed forward even further. Gideon found herself with a lapful of necro and honestly could not say she was bothered in the slightest.

Up this close, Gideon could smell Ianthe’s shampoo. Which was not creepy, she reassured herself, because Ianthe had been the one to start this whole thing off anyway. She had the scent of something citrus-y – probably oranges, because that sounded more like a shampoo flavor than lemons or limes. Flavor? That couldn’t be right.

But it didn’t really matter, because Gideon’s brain was undertaking a multitrack drift more advanced than any train heretofore had attempted. It started with _mouth flavor_ and then jumped to _hair flavor_ and then _holy shit her grip is weirdly strong_ and then _why am I not touching myself, Ianthe had the right idea, that would really elevate the experience._

Her hand sneaked down from where she’d gripped Ianthe’s back, sliding down the curve of her spine and across her hip. But before her fingers could land their target, Ianthe surged forward in some strange mirrorverse time loop, and Gideon found herself flat on her back, with her feet on her pillow and Ianthe’s thigh pressing directly up against her clit.

She moaned, grinding up without shame. “Holy shit, Tridentarius, warn a girl.”

“If you’re so desperate to go first, then you don’t get to touch. It’s very simple.” Ianthe’s blonde hair hung around her face like a lion’s mane, which seemed somehow apt in a way Gideon couldn’t really put her finger on. She didn’t even care that Ianthe was smirking in a way that ordinarily would have made her want to start a fistfight. She just wanted Ianthe to do that again.

Ianthe swung the leg that wasn’t currently serving as Gideon’s new favorite sex toy around to the side, the better to straddle Gideon’s thigh and therefore presumably create some reciprocity. The hand she wasn’t using to hold herself up found its way to Gideon’s right nipple, which she tweaked.

Gideon shrugged. It had pinched a little, but that was all. “Not really my thing, sorry. I’m more a—” she bucked up against Ianthe’s knee, which really did feel fucking amazing “—kind of girl.”

“Interesting,” Ianthe said nonchalantly. Gideon felt strangely sensitive under that sharp, catlike gaze. She was suddenly very aware of a warmth under her skin, and the soft pads of Ianthe’s fingers. Then, grinning, Ianthe tweaked her nipple again, and Gideon saw stars.

“ What the  _ fuck, _ ”  she said, though at least part of the sentence came out as just a high-pitched whine.

Ianthe did it again. If she had not been lying prone in her own bed, Gideon would have collapsed. As it was, she spasmed involuntarily and came up cursing.

“Relax, I’ll put them back when I’m finished. Don’t be a child, Nav.”

“Did you _seriously_ use _necromancy_ on me?!” Gideon yelled.

“It’s good, isn’t it? I honestly don’t know how normal people get off.” Ianthe bent her head, her hair brushing Gideon’s chest feather-light, and Gideon shuddered. Ianthe hummed smugly, then took the left nipple, which had been feeling somewhat left out, between her teeth. Then she laved her tongue around it.

Gideon blacked out.

It took her a moment to come back to reality. “ _ Will you stop that?! _ ”  she said, once she could say things again. The words weren’t very coherent.

“I’m sorry,” said Ianthe, sounding both unrepentant and extremely pleased with herself. “I thought we were focusing on you now. I would hate to be self-centered.”

“I will drop-kick you,” Gideon rasped, “so hard that your ass comes out your nose.”

“This is what I get for being generous,” Ianthe said, but she put her fingers very carefully on Gideon’s harder-than-iron nipples and the sensitivity subsided.

Gideon thudded her head back against the foot of the mattress. “Ugh, fine, point made. God, how do you enjoy that? It’s way too fast.”

“I didn’t take you for a fan of foreplay.”

“You didn’t take me,” Gideon said, “period.”

“If we were in my room, that could change,” Ianthe said, “but I doubt you have the same resources I do.”

“Shut up, I have toys.” Gideon ground up against Ianthe’s thigh again, considered for a moment, then said, “A toy. It’s green.”

“And it sounds very satisfactory,” Ianthe agreed, entirely insincere. “I think I can do better.” She dropped down onto her forearms, and Gideon thought for a moment she was going to kiss her. Then she rolled her hips and Gideon felt a hot spark travel all the way down her spine.

“ I mean, I already came three times,” Gideon said. “It  _ hurt _ , but if we’re keeping score, I guess you’re doing all right.”

“How generous.” For that Ianthe did kiss her, a light peck on the lips that simultaneously entranced Gideon and left her wanting. Ianthe removed her leg from Gideon’s clit, rearranging herself so that she was kneeling between Gideon’s spread legs. This was a move that would have drawn protest if she hadn’t run her fingers down the sensitive inside of Gideon’s thigh.

Gideon moaned. She was coming down from the live-wire stimulation Ianthe had put her body through, and the touch was grounding but nowhere near overwhelming. It was just  _ nice _ , gentle touches which left her shivering but not shaky, and she leaned into it, groaning contentedly.

They stayed like that for a while, Ianthe gently scraping her nails against Gideon’s skin, drawing out small noises as Gideon both cooled down and wound up again. “I almost like you like this,” Ianthe said conversationally. “You talk less.”

“ Gimme a minute, I’ll—” Ianthe dug in a little “— _ ahhm _ , bounce back.”

“Will you? I’m not going to make you come again if you’re going to whine about it more.”

“Be normal for like two minutes and I won’t have to.”

“Two minutes?” Ianthe drawled. “My, my...”

“ _ Ugh _ ,” Gideon groaned, reaching for her clit. “Whatever, I’ll do it myself.”

Ianthe’s fingers closed around her wrist. “I’m not going to tell you again. Fingers or mouth?”

“Yes,” said Gideon, then, “Ow!” when Ianthe’s grip tightened. “Fine, fucking— mouth!” It wasn’t that difficult a choice, in all honesty – Gideon could finger herself all she wanted, whenever she wanted. She wasn’t flexible enough for oral. (She had tested this, several times.)

“ Oh, good, you  _ do  _ understand what we’re doing here.” Ianthe smiled like a shark, keeping her hand tight around Gideon’s wrist, and shifted herself backwards until she was lying down, head between Gideon’s thighs.

“Do not do that thing that you did,” Gideon warned her. “I’m serious. I will kick you in the eye on accident. It’ll hurt.”

“You’re so picky.” Ianthe’s breath blew warm over Gideon’s clit. She shivered, spreading her knees a little wider like giving more space would automatically bring Ianthe in to fill it. “Not even a little nerve adjustment?”

“I mean, if you suck bad enough to need the help,” Gideon said, smirking up at the ceiling.

“Sucking isn’t really the goal here,” Ianthe said. “It’s a tool at best. Not that I’d expect you to know that.”

“Guess I’m well and tool-y fucked,” Gideon said.

“Say that again and find out.” Nevertheless, Ianthe spread Gideon’s lips wide with two fingers, leaned in, and licked a neat stripe over her clit.

Gideon let out a heavy breath, trying not to sound  _ that  _ aroused. Ianthe’s tongue was rough and soft, warm and wet, and flexible in a way that her vibrator wasn’t. It was strange and different and, perhaps most importantly, it belonged to a hot girl who wanted to see Gideon flat on her back.

It wasn’t really easy to tell what Ianthe was doing down there, given that Gideon’s view of her mouth was sort of blocked by her own body, and anyway Gideon didn’t believe in overthinking things. What mattered was that it felt _good._ Gideon could feel heat rising in her belly as Ianthe’s tongue did whatever wiggly sorts of things tongues did, and she – selfishly? Helpfully? – canted her hips up as best she could give Ianthe a better angle.

Ianthe paused momentarily to breathe, and also to rearrange her hands so that she could circle the pad of one thumb over Gideon’s clit while still keeping her pussy spread out.

“Hey,” Gideon said, propping herself up on her elbows to try and scope the situation. It was functionally self-preservation: if Ianthe pulled that trick on her clit, Gideon would immediately collapse of heart failure, explode, and die, in that order. She would then presumably go directly to… most likely hell, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

At least she wouldn’t die a virgin, but the margin on that one was still a little too close for her liking.

Ianthe’s mouth pinched up. “Have I really lost your trust so entirely?”

“Can’t lose what you never haaaahhhhhhhhhnnnn,” Gideon said, head lolling back. Ianthe had put her mouth directly on Gideon’s clit, which was always a surefire way to end a conversation.

Gideon lost track a bit after that. There was gasping and moaning, as was to be expected based on Gideon’s extensive research into the subject, but mostly, there was Ianthe, who seemed determined to wring Gideon out like she was a particularly talkative sponge. She worked Gideon over with her fingers and her tongue until Gideon was writhing, nearly bucking. Gideon was, in general, used to having precise and minute control over her body. Losing it was  _ awesome. _

After a few minutes of that deliberate, overwhelming attention, Gideon could no longer stand it. “Ianthe,” she groaned, every muscle tensing, wrapping one of her calves around the back of Ianthe’s shoulders, trying to press her closer, to pull herself over the edge—

Ianthe twisted her tongue in some expert maneuver, and for the fourth time that night, Gideon came at her hand.

The room seemed very quiet all of a sudden. Probably because Gideon’s breathing suddenly sounded extra loud. “Holy shit,” Gideon said. Her body felt like it was made of honey, slow-moving and sappy sweet. For a single insane moment, she contemplated _thanking_ Ianthe. Mercifully, her post-coital reaction time was slow enough that she managed to check that impulse before it ruined the rest of her natural life and unnatural death.

“Oh, dear,” Ianthe said, still inches away from Gideon’s pussy. “Now I’ve gone and spoiled you for everyone else. How awful.”

“Your pillow talk blows,” Gideon said, thunking her head back against the foot of the bed. “Just for the record.”

“And you complain too much. Let’s put it down as room for improvement all around.” Ianthe did not sound very interested in improving, however; Gideon felt and heard, rather than saw, as she shifted back on the bed and brought a hand to herself again.

Gideon propped herself up. “Hey, what?”

“This has all been immensely satisfying, of course, but only on an egotistical level. Physically, I’m still a bit wanting.”

“Yeah, but I was going to do you next,” Gideon said. This might have sounded more impressive if she had not still been somewhat wobbly around the edges.

“ Look at you, Nav. Not to be modest, but I’ve turned you into jelly. This is, depressingly, the only  _ realistic  _ option.”

“Nah, screw that,” Gideon said. “What kind of girl do you take me for?” She managed to muster enough leftover strength to properly reposition herself: up, then over Ianthe to bracket her in (carefully not falling this time), down as though for a plank to meet her lips, and then shimmying back down the bed between Ianthe’s knees.

“I see chivalry yet lives,” Ianthe said, but there was a breathy note in her voice that Gideon was still too blissed out to properly examine.

Instead, she took stock. The setup wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to her: Gideon had seen vaginas before, both in what might be generously termed ‘art’ and in her own bed a few minutes prior. Ianthe was shaved, which was in line with the art but not in line with Gideon’s own experience. She couldn’t imagine having the patience for it. Gideon ran a thumb over the soft, hairless skin where Ianthe’s thigh met her pelvis. “Do you do this all the time?”

Ianthe snorted. “When I find someone who’s worth the effort.”

At that, Gideon felt the slightest twinge of smugness run through her. Again she brushed her fingers over the same spot, and Ianthe twitched. Gideon snickered. It hadn’t stopped being funny.

“ What was the phrase you used?” Ianthe said. “Oh, yes.  _ I’ll drop-kick you so hard your ass comes out your nose. _ ”

“Fine, God,” Gideon said, and spread Ianthe’s labia apart with her thumb and pointer finger.

This was the bit that neither porn nor Harrow’s pilfered anatomy textbooks had prepared her for: contact.

Ianthe’s vulva was rosy-pink, and glistening slightly. This was to be expected, but it was still a bit of a relief, as the idea of her  _ not  _ glistening would have been very difficult to get through. She didn’t have any sort of piercings going on, which was another weight off Gideon’s shoulders. If she couldn’t land the trick with the lip and the nibbling, Gideon knew any sort of stunt involving jewelry would be something she’d have to work up to.

The world did not stand still or hold its breath as Gideon traced a careful, reverent finger between Ianthe’s lips. Harrow’s alarm clock, battered from years of six A.M. service, ticked; the bedsprings creaked as Ianthe canted her hips; the radiator by the window clanked a little bit. It didn’t matter. Gideon was transfixed. She spread her knees a little wider so that Ianthe could rest her legs on them, and stroked up and down.

In Gideon’s comic books this was generally the moment where you lost control and dove in face-first to worship between the knees of the Queen of Jupiter, or fulfilled your end of the bargain you’d made with a cunning pirate captain. Occasionally there was a military commander in dress uniform who told you to drop and give her thirty licks, or something like that.

In real life, this probably would have been the moment where Ianthe said, “Well?” in that snotty tone she always seemed to have, with that knowing look she got every time Gideon couldn’t figure out the next steps, and Gideon picked her up bodily and dumped her on the floor, or kicked her out into the hallway, or called her a pretentious voyeuristic bully with a surgery fetish, an overinflated ego, and a terminal case of zero fucking boundaries. Possibly all three.

Perhaps this was not real life, then, because this was not that moment. Gideon couldn’t stop herself: she hesitated a moment and her eyes flicked up to meet Ianthe’s purple ones. Ianthe raised one pale eyebrow. Then the corner of her mouth turned up, and for a fraction of a second, her smile was amused, bordering on fond.

She quickly rearranged her features into something a little more recognizable, her expression now one of mildly entertained scorn, but Gideon was warmed all the way through. Honestly, how hard could it be?

Gideon pushed herself back a foot, giving her space to rest her torso between her knees and bringing her face directly down to Ianthe’s pussy.

Curious, she probed her tongue along Ianthe’s slit and heard Ianthe suck in a small breath. Gideon did it again, and got another interested noise for her troubles.

It didn’t taste bad, though it wasn’t sweet the way porn had led her to expect. The texture against her tongue was both profoundly strange and entirely addictive, a sort of semi-slick semi-rough friction. She was having a hard time finding Ianthe’s clit — up this close, she couldn’t get much of an angle to see it — but every lick of her tongue seemed to make Ianthe’s legs twitch lightly around her ears. On a sudden whim, Gideon pressed her tongue directly against Ianthe’s hole.

Ianthe made a strange noise, a sort of intrigued humming chirrup. It was a sound Gideon hadn’t known could be in the same galaxy as Ianthe Tridentarius, but she’d made it nonetheless. Ianthe’s legs shifted wide, and almost without effort, Gideon’s tongue slipped headlong between her lips and inside her cunt.

Ianthe’s walls were soft but firm, with very little give. Gideon couldn’t tell whether that was because her tongue needed conditioning or because Ianthe was as uptight here as she was everywhere else. She swivelled and twisted her tongue, trying to probe the limits of that velvety resistance.

“Fingers,” Ianthe criticized. Gideon stuck out her tongue further, though that wasn’t saying much, and then decided to take Ianthe’s feedback into consideration.

One finger was, all in all, not difficult; Ianthe’s interior was soft, warm and slippery as expected. This Gideon knew how to do, though the angle was different. She crooked her finger and felt it follow the passage of Ianthe’s vagina smoothly.

Gideon rotated her finger a bit, marvelling. It was – well, it was surreal, how she could discover again and again that something she knew almost by heart changed immeasurably when a second party got involved. It felt like the surprise ought to wear off.

With careful deliberation, Gideon put her tongue at the base of her finger and then licked her way up until she reached a spot that made Ianthe suck in a breath. She fluttered her tongue there – as much as she knew how to flutter, anyway – and kept fluttering as she pushed the tip of a second finger in alongside the first. Ianthe let out a very quiet groan, and Gideon smirked into the crook of her thigh.

This wasn’t so complicated after all. She’d known it couldn’t be; after all, if Gideon Nav wasn’t a master of the sexpert theorems, who was? She recalled a tip she’d seen and started to trace the alphabet, lowercase, over Ianthe’s clit with her tongue.  _ A, b, c, d, e _ … “ e” got a good reaction, so she stuck with it, bending and flexing and waggling her fingers with each repetition.

Licking Ianthe didn’t become rhythmic or easy, since much as she liked to talk, her tongue wasn’t one of Gideon’s most exercised muscles. But it was engrossing. Her world seemed to narrow to this space, wet and warm with Ianthe’s thighs bracketing her face, keeping her fixed on her task.

For a moment, there was a little  _ click-clunk _ , like the sound of a door opening or closing. Gideon nearly propped herself up on her forearms, pulling her mouth away from Ianthe. But before she could, Ianthe gasped, “ _ Gideon _ ,” and seized her by the hair, pulling her face back against Ianthe’s cunt.

This development immediately commandeered Gideon’s full attention. The noise could have come from any number of things in this rickety dorm room — a pipe rattling, the creak and crunch of the old bedframe — but it had not come from Ianthe, which meant that it didn’t matter right now.

Ianthe seemed to fall apart under Gideon’s mouth. She didn’t wail or writhe; she gasped quietly and shook, tiny motions that felt much more real than anything like Gideon’s pornos. She kept Gideon gripped tight, holding her like a lifeline, and drowned without fanfare under the attention.

When she was done, Gideon only knew by the loosening of her grip on Gideon’s scalp and the slight shift in her legs, moving back a little so she could prop herself up. “Not bad for a first try,” she drawled.

“Eat me,” Gideon said, sitting up.

“Not right now, I think. My, that was an exciting romp.” Ianthe stretched languidly, letting her hair fall back along Gideon’s pillow as though she expected to spend the night there.

“Are you going to spend the night, then?” Gideon asked.

Ianthe’s laugh was like wind chimes: airy and disinterested. She looked across the room again, at Gideon’s threadbare comforter and Harrow’s desk, which might have been laid out with a ruler. “No. No, I don’t think I will, Nav. But it’s sweet of you to offer.” She sighed, and the noise was luxurious. “Pass me my clothes, and I’ll leave you to your— do cavaliers have homework? I suppose I should ask Babs, but... I don’t actually care.”

“Get them yourself,” Gideon said. “It’s my bed.”

“And it’s _so_ comfortable.” Ianthe pursed her lips in what might have been intended as a pout, but Gideon folded her arms. Finally she rolled her eyes, got to her feet and grabbed her underwear from where it had been abandoned on the floor. “I liked you better when you were mad with lust.”

“Same here,” Gideon said.

Without hesitance or difficulty, Ianthe folded her arms behind her back to hook her bra, then stepped into her skirt. Gideon begrudgingly marveled again. Flexibility wouldn’t be the issue. It was the fingering – ha ha – that she couldn’t grasp. Ianthe slid her diaphanous shirt over her head, and Gideon wondered momentarily whether she ought to pull the comforter over her crotch. Nothing about her body could be a surprise to Ianthe anymore, but that instinct from – god, how long ago had her shower been? Well, the urge to not be naked in front of a clothed Ianthe Tridentarius was rearing its head once more.

“Well, it’s been fun. In its way. Let’s do this again some time, shall we?” Ianthe slid open the top drawer to Harrow’s desk and removed a sheaf of papers, waving idly with her other hand. Then, with an unexpected lack of pomp and/or circumstance, she was gone.

Gideon gave her departure approximately zero seconds before she slid off the bed and went fishing for an adequately un-suspicious pair of boxers and whatever tank top was closest to hand. She was not entirely sure what the fuck had just happened – and she definitely was not sure what the fuck that last comment had meant – but before she’d left for college, Aiglamene had, to both of their chagrin, drilled at least a few safe sex practices deep into her skull. After sex, you pick between the bathroom or a UTI.

As she was getting dressed, she heard Ianthe’s voice float from down the hall. Well, it was less floating and more resounding, since it had to get through her door, but Gideon couldn’t pretend her ears didn’t prick up at the sound. The conversation seemed to go like this:

“ Well,  _ hello _ . Fancy seeing you here at this hour.”

An unintelligible murmur.

“I was invited, if you can believe it.”

More murmuring, equally obscure.

“No, I think I’m done for the evening. But I’ve had a wonderful time.”

Even more murmuring, which might have possibly been audible to select genetically-engineered bats.

“Mm, well. That’s her prerogative, I think.”

Murmuring, this time somehow both more emphatic, and less coherent.

“I’m afraid I’ve got to go. Incidentally, I’d take a lap if I were you. Just to give it a minute.”

This time the response was not a murmur, though it was still completely indecipherable. Gideon decided that, were she asked, she would describe it as a hiss.

She listened at the door for a moment, but whoever was out there didn’t continue, and Ianthe didn’t respond. Gideon was, perhaps contrary to anyone’s expectations, not bad at stillness or silence when she needed to be. She’d grown up in Drearburh as a teen who was not Harrow, which necessitated a certain amount of knowing how to get the fuck out of dodge, or failing that, how to avoid all notice. Gently, quietly, she twisted the knob of the door, pulled it open, and peeked out.

Ianthe was not in the hall; nor was whoever she’d been speaking to, though Gideon caught a glimpse of baggy black jeans disappearing around the corner.

Welp.

That was probably fine, Gideon decided, especially since she still needed to follow Aiglamene’s instructions. She went, took a piss, and washed up.

In the distinctly gross light of the bathroom, in the extremely dingy mirror, Gideon could see that her hair was a total mess. This mess was not particularly different from usual, as far as she could tell. The top was standing up where Ianthe had pulled on it, and the bottom was flat from when she’d been lying on the bed, arching her back up and her head down. It looked as though she hadn’t brushed it, which she didn’t anyway. Gideon wasn’t sure she’d ever even owned a hairbrush.

On the whole, not a bad night. Weird, but not bad. Gideon had gotten in her workout, gotten laid, and gotten to repeatedly tell Ianthe where to stick it. She shook the water off her hands, wiped them on her boxers, and headed back.

When she opened the door to the room, Harrow was sitting on her own bed, back ramrod straight (as though it was ever any other way).

“You forgot to lock the door,” she said, her voice like a Drearburh winter.

“Oh, shit,” Gideon said, suddenly remembering that she had forgotten to lock the door. In her defense, it had worked out, but explaining that to Harrow didn’t seem like the wisest course of action. “Uh, sorry. I guess.”

“ I asked you to do  _ one thing. _ ”

“You asked me to do like five things,” Gideon countered. “Obviously I was going to forget. I put my stuff in the laundry, didn’t I?”

Harrow’s eyes flicked to Gideon’s laundry bin, overflowing in the corner. Her mouth thinned. Gideon followed her gaze, and rolled her eyes when she saw that her socks had not quite made it.

“Whatever, your majesty. How was the library?”

“Fine,” Harrow said, still sepulchral.

This was not new. Harrow was often sepulchral. Gideon nevertheless felt her skin prickle with irritation. “So you found the library’s antique collection of skinless mags.”

Harrow levelled a gaze like the void of space at her.

“Sixteen bookshelves collapsed on you and they had to dig you out,” Gideon snapped, stalking over to the socks. She snatched them off the floor and dunked them in the laundry bin, where they bounced onto the floor again. Pettily, Gideon kicked them under the bed. “Work with me here.”

“Ianthe and I were meant to study tonight.”

Gideon froze. “Yeah?”

“We have an anatomy final on Friday.”

“Yeah, I heard. She, uh.” Gideon swallowed, trying to think. “She stopped by.”

“I saw her in the hallway.”

“She was mad you didn’t show.” Gideon gave her most casual shrug. “I guess.”

“I gathered.”

It wasn’t a lie, Gideon decided, though honestly, she might have chosen to lie anyway had Harrow asked. But Harrow had not asked. She had not sat upright and pinned Gideon to the wall with her _everyone-loves-me-and-you-are-a-tool_ gaze, and asked, _Griddle, did you fuck my lab partner?_ And so it wasn’t a lie for Gideon to say _she stopped by_ or _she was mad_ and casually omit the part where Ianthe had turned her brain and legs to jelly.

“ You guys can make it up, though,” she said in lieu of  _ Ianthe made me come three times in thirty seconds because she is an evil sex witch _ . “Just study tomorrow.”

Harrow’s mouth pinched like a cat’s asshole. “I told you not to talk to her, Griddle. Or did you forget that one too?”

“ Oh, fuck you,” Gideon snapped. “You think I made her leave?  _ Midnight at the latest,  _ what a load. Necro or no, you can’t ghost someone and expect them to sit around waiting for you.”

“ Believe me, I am now  _ acutely aware _ ,” Harrow hissed, eyes full of murder. Gideon considered that a bit dramatic. It was a study date, not an actual date. Probably.

Or was it? Gideon had a series of brief but concerning heart palpitations. Had fucking Ianthe inadvertently also, and less enjoyably, fucked Harrow? Had they had plans to eat out, which Gideon had then tanked by eating out?

No, Gideon decided. That would require Harrow to be aware of the existence of both romance and sex. And Gideon had long ago abandoned any hope that, despite her love for bones, Harrow would show any interest in boning. Harrowhark would shrivel and die before being willingly naked in front of any living person, with the exception of Gideon, although that was because a) Gideon was her roommate, and Harrow was practical, and b) as Harrow had frequently told Gideon in their youth, she didn’t count as a person.

“Look, Nonagesimus—” Gideon tried. Then she stopped, unsure what came next. She wasn’t going to apologize for inadvertently and spectacularly losing her virginity just because Harrow had stood someone up. She tried again: “She’ll probably reschedule. Just apologize and make up an excuse. Some necro shit. _Hey, super duper ultra sorry, lost track of time because I found a desiccated squirrel corpse on the way back to the dorm and had to rend its flesh and raise its bones._ Or something.”

Harrow raised an unreadable eyebrow.

“Maybe say something better than that,” Gideon allowed.

Finally, Harrow said, “I left something in the library.” Gideon was immediately furious, in that way only Harrow could accomplish. It was such an obvious lie. She hadn’t even  _ tried.  _ Instead, without another word, Harrow picked herself up, dusted nonexistent dust off her black jeans and her oversized hoodie, slung her backpack over one shoulder, and swept past Gideon out of the room.

Which was fine. Whatever. Gideon didn’t give a shit. It wasn’t her fault Harrow lacked the basic social graces of your average desiccated squirrel corpse.

She flung herself onto her bed — it felt appropriately dramatic — bounced off from having flung herself way too hard, and rolled onto the floor, where she clocked her head on the chair leg. She groaned. Tonight had been very good until about ten minutes ago. It wasn’t fair, and when things felt particularly unfair, Gideon always returned to her lodestar.

Her rapier was in her locker. That was fine. She only had one because it was standard-issue for cav track. When Magnus had handed it to her, she’d had to try not to laugh. The rapier was a weapon for show, for public duels, for glitter and style and flair. What she needed was her two-hander.

It was in the back of Gideon’s closet. She didn’t need to get it out often, but sometimes— sometimes— 

They’d had a fight about bringing it. A real, proper fight, not just a brawl where Harrow summoned skeletons and Gideon stomped them back into powder. Gideon had said that she would bring her sword; Harrow had said she wouldn’t. But Gideon’s logic was simple: when they left, Harrow would get a goodbye card from every last person in Drearburh. Gideon would get a single handshake, if she was lucky. There was nothing in Drearburh that Gideon would have wanted to keep, but surely she should get to bring _something._ They were both leaving home, but only one of them would get to keep it.

Harrow had cursed at her, said they’d be laughingstocks, that she wouldn’t be caught dead with a cavalier who didn’t know the rapier and traipsed around with a monstrosity almost as big as she was. Gideon had told her, very simply, that she’d learn. She’d go to school. She’d study the rapier; the buckler; the knuckles; the chain; she’d learn any offhand they set her to, and she’d become a better duelist than Nonius himself. But if Harrowhark tried to make her leave her sword in Drearburh, Gideon would pack her bags, get on a bus, and Harrow would never see her again.

Harrow had let her keep the sword.

Gideon opened the closet, pulled out her two-hander, and dropped it onto the bed. Then she flicked off the desk lamp. She wouldn’t fall asleep next to it – she wasn’t  _ stupid _ –  but she would allow herself this, just for a little while.

The mattress dipped to accommodate the sword’s heavy weight, as though someone lay next to her. Next to it, Gideon could feel as small as a child for once. “Hey,” she whispered. “I miss you.” Then she took a deep breath, pulled her threadbare comforter over herself and her sword, and closed her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Ianthe uses flesh magic on Gideon without asking, in order to amplify her sexual experience. Gideon tells her to knock it off, and she does.


End file.
